On the return of Flinders, Governor Hunter placed a small sloop, the Norfolk, at the service of the friends, and with it they surveyed the entire coast of Tasmania, Flinders preparing the charts. Their discoveries were numerous, the river Tamar being among them. This, alas, was the last joint expedition of the gallant comrades! Bass was tempted to join in some trading speculation to South America, and unhappily his vessel was confiscated by the Spaniards for a breach of the customs laws. Bass was sent as a prisoner to work in the silver mines, and was never heard of more. Well can it be imagined that many a hope, many a bright career, many a noble aspiration, have perished in those living tombs, but surely they never closed over a bolder or more unhappy victim than Bass.
Flinders for a time continued his successful career. He visited England, and was raised to the rank of lieutenant, and he was authorised to proceed with his surveys in a vessel called the Investigator. A passport was obtained for him from the French Government, exempting him from capture during the time of war. At the same time, however, the French Government sent out an expedition under M. Baudin. With characteristic energy, Flinders did his work in advance of his French rival, who was driven by scurvy to Sydney. Flinders was returning home when the state of his rotten vessel forced him to put into the Mauritius, which then belonged to France. Here, despite his passport, his ship was seized, and he was thrown into prison. M. Baudin called at the Mauritius soon afterwards, and he is accused by history of a great treachery. Certainly there is much that charity finds it difficult to explain in M. Baudin's conduct. It is written that he copied the charts and papers of the prisoner. This seems to be an incredible meanness; but it is certain that he connived at the detention, and that on his return to France he published a work anticipating all that Flinders could say, ignoring the labours of the prisoner, and representing himself as the great Australian discoverer of the day.
Splitters in the Forest.
More than six years elapsed before Flinders was released; and, upon reaching England, he found that the discoveries he intended to announce had been given to the world, and that the public was familiar with them. Exposure, hardships, and, above all, the long weary years in the French prison, had all told upon him. He set to work to bring out his book and his charts, and just managed to complete his task, but sank immediately afterwards. It is a mournful chapter. But the fame of Flinders survives and is growing. In Australian annals no name is more justly honoured.
Very soon the colonists began to push inland from their settlements on the coast, feeling their way, and gradually becoming acquainted with the novel features of their new abode. There was great joy when, after many endeavours, a Sydney party discovered a pass through the extraordinary precipices of the Blue Mountains, which had long hemmed in the infant colony. The adventures of Oxley, who thought that he was stopped by an inland sea, of Sturt, who nearly perished in the Central Desert, and of Mitchell, who opened up the Western District of Victoria, have already been incidentally mentioned in these pages.
One of the first efforts to reach the centre of the continent was made by Edward John Eyre, in after-days Governor of Jamaica. He left Adelaide in 1840, his party consisting of five Europeans and three natives, with thirteen horses. But the year was one of drought. The great marsh, now called Lake Torrens, was a sheet of glittering salt. The horses broke through the crust, and a hideous and tenacious black mud oozed out. Advance on this line was impossible; and, upon taking a more westerly route, the explorer was stopped by the still larger marsh now called Lake Eyre, which was also a deceptive sheet of salt. Disappointed, Eyre returned to the head of Spencer's Gulf, and decided to make a dash at Western Australia, following the line of the cliffs in order to intercept any rivers. Alas, there were none to intercept! The party had to depend for subsistence upon the chance of finding water-holes not dried up, and the little clay pans formed by the aborigines, and called native wells.
At an early stage Eyre sent all his party back, except his overseer Baxter, his black boy Wylie, and two natives. The farther he went the more sterile the country became, and the worse was his position. The burning sand suffocated the travellers, and day after day passed without water. Most of the horses died. Eyre was watching the remnant feeding on some scanty vegetation one night, and was musing on his gloomy prospects, when he heard a musket shot. The two natives had murdered the overseer, decamped with the stores, and left Eyre and his boy Wylie to their fate! The night was dark, and Eyre gives a vivid description of his feelings as he sat in the gloom by the side of the corpse of his friend, expecting every moment that the treacherous blacks would use their muskets upon him and Wylie. He could not bury the body, for the ground was hard rock, and he had no tools. Day after day he plodded on. Had Wylie deserted him he must have perished, for in the boy's quickness in detecting traces of the natives and indications of their 'wells' lay the only chance of safety. At last, when nearly exhausted, Eyre saw two boats at sea. They belonged to a French whaler. Eyre was taken on board, was well fed, was supplied with stores and ammunition; and, after a rest of eleven days, he and Wylie continued their journey, and, the country improving, they reached King George's Sound in safety.
Thirty years after this journey was made it was repeated from the opposite side by Mr. John Forrest, a fine young West Australian explorer, who with a small party passed over it with but little inconvenience or difficulty. Mr. Forrest again and again camped on Eyre's old camping ground, which he recognised at once, and which seemed to have remained undisturbed from the time Eyre and Wylie left it.